The call for courses for our Degrowth in Action - Climate Justice Summer School 2015 has now been extended to 7 May. The summer school will take place from 9 to 14 August 2015 in the lignite-mining region of the Rhineland in cooperation with the annual climate camp. The core of the summer school programme is made up of courses that take place continuously over 4 days. In addition, there is the possibility to offer two day long courses. Each day for 2,5 hours, the same group of people (about 20 - 30 people) focuses on specific topics in the field of alternative economic models or climate justice, or works on tangible approaches for putting degrowth into political practice. If you're interested in preparing a course, you can find all relevant details here. the updated PDF-version is available here
We all use models in daily life to explain our environment. An example: I assume that a tree will grow provided it has sufficient water, nutrients and sun. I am using a simple model here, without understanding the nitty-gritty – what exactly happens in the roots, stem, leaves and cells. Thinking in models is not only useful to understand our world, but also to solve problems. Let’s assum...
How the conflation with neoliberalism and austerity unfairly reduces the idea of degrowth to absurdity – and where the degrowth movement can turn for answers to the crisis. The degrowth movement has been developed in response to neoliberal reality, neoliberalism's comically reductive view of human nature, its ecological blindness and the rise in social inequality it has brought about. Austerit...
By Chris Ward In the scientific paper session on technological solutions for a degrowth society, it was refreshing to hear someone (unsurprisingly an engineer) mention that the degrowth movement could do with more practical projects and methodologies to run alongside the theoretical discussions. The OAE Project: Open Data and Open Source software for a sustainable economy The OAE project a...
